Utah Exhibition Reviews published in 15 Bytes, Utah’s art magazine, including reviews of local Utah artists, regional artists, group exhibitions and traveling exhibits of national and international artists.
In Claire Sherman’s “Waterfall,” a jet of water spills from a fern-covered rock overhead into a grotto of shaded shrubbery. The stone face display a variety of surface features: jagged in the foreground, smooth along the lip where polished by the rushing water, and cubical underneath the ledge […]
One thing that can probably be said with relative certainty about part-time Utah resident and full-time artist Cara Despain is that she’s not in it for the money. Nothing in her current outing at the Kimball in Park City says “Collectable.” Even the show’s “hood ornament” — […]
Brian Boulton is a man with the courage of his convictions. By this, I mean that, having chosen to work in either reclaimed or man-made materials and to produce non-representational sculpture, he’s resisted the temptation to slip in the occasional pretty bauble or a helpful similarity to some […]
Even though Rachel Henriksen and Carrie Everett sign their art works individually, they show them together, thereby demonstrating a common purpose. Their statement, signed by them both, reads rather like a research proposal: “to understand and process … the physical and emotional transformations associated with womanhood.” Considering how […]
Ever since history’s first public art gallery opened in the city offices — or Uffizi — of Florence in the 1580s, a tempest has raged in the teapot of art concerning what kind of signage should accompany a display. A minority has always detested those informative wall cards […]
One artist I can never get enough of is Alison Neville, so when I saw that she had curated a room full of art at BDAC, nothing could dissuade me: least of all the advance photos. The photos matter because the show in question, CreepyCute, contemplated a familiar, […]
From time to time an artist introduces a new material or technique, typically embedding it in a network of traditional, dependable approaches. In The Availability of Secret Information, Marc T. Wise blows away such caution with a plethora of stunning innovations, each a thrill to the eye […]
“WHO did THAT?” I ask, stopped cold by a large, just-hung abstract in rich, compelling colors – peaches, browns, grays, and a variety of blues and violets – hanging behind the front desk at Phillips Gallery. “That is a Bonnie Phillips,” replies Bonnie Phillips in a small voice.“It isn’t signed, but they tell me it is mine, […]
In the enigmatic “Nowhere On” the term “figure drawing” initially sounds ambitious: only the lower legs, from the knees to the feet, are drawn. Above them, a cloud of almost cubist marks could be anything at first, or nothing. In essence, then, the figure reads in reverse, from […]
Mi Vida – My Art, the Pilar Pobil retrospective at Weber State University’s Stewart Library, is appropriately named: as will be clear to anyone that visits the show, Pobil’s life and art are deeply and inextricably intertwined. Viewing Pobil’s work feels like a visual autobiography. She opens her mind, […]
Corinne Geertsen’s many-layered art images, which begin as photographs, are magic tricks. They contain ghosts of the photographed past, people wearing clothing time has almost forgotten — derby hats and waistcoats, huge hats covered with flowers, children in proper attire — people, largely, in awe of being photographed, […]
There’s one life-size, cast-bronze golfer in the middle of this gallery, and a mysterious cut-out of a doorway, which staff-only can enter, behind a counter. Which leads one to feel that a mysterious and dreamy, miniature game of golf is being played here, in/at Salt Lake City’s Brushworks […]
There are those who believe that Brian Kershisnik never changes: that from year to year he paints the same subjects in the same way. While they may be right about some of the details — the dogs, birds, fruit, the flames, the haloes, and the palm-sized bicycles — […]
Those who value the beauty of empty, open spaces on a canvas will find a warm welcome in the paintings of Leslie Duke, now on display at Salt Lake City’s 15th Street Gallery. Mainly still lifes of flowers and citrus, her works are vibrant and lively while also […]
The ancient Romans liked to build gardens next to their homes to open up space and provide vistas. Where that proved impractical, as in urban Rome, they painted those gardens on the walls instead. Even today, the House of Livia — wife of Augustus, the first emperor — […]
At this show, you’ve really, for all effects and purposes, been invited into Brent Godfrey’s studio. Postponed for over a year by the pandemic, the exhibit contains Godfrey’s social-statement (“social studies”) paintings, enormous abstracts, small and large figurative paintings, woven canvas pieces, works on paper. Called Matter of […]
A mola is a hand-assembled textile conceived and made by the Guna people of Panama, in Central America, and Colombia, in South America. These vividly colorful, highly geometric, stylized plant and animal portraits are a popular trade item, and discerning travelers to the Guna’s homelands study, purchase, collect, […]
Space is a commodity with resounding significance as of late. The isolation necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic has made more immediate the symbolic power of spaces — home, work, school among them — and the perceived absence or overindulgence of one, which may drastically alter our relation to […]
A drive — or better yet, a stroll — through the South Salt Lake City neighborhood just south of downtown, along Main Street, will treat the observant eye to mural after mural from one building to the next. Natural scenery has returned to this commercial district in the […]
